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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077079">The Old God of MI6</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalescentgold/pseuds/opalescentgold'>opalescentgold</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fictional Religion &amp; Theology, M/M, Pre-Slash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:21:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,966</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077079</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalescentgold/pseuds/opalescentgold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When M gave Bond the option of becoming 007, she said bluntly, “The few Double-Ohs who reach the age of 45 are given to Q as an offering. Are you prepared for that?”</p>
<p>“Q?”</p>
<p>M gave him an impatient look. “The Old God of MI6. Its designation is Q.”</p>
<p>It...had a designation? There were actual protocols for this entity? It was a <i>god?</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Bond &amp; Q, James Bond/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>472</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>007 Fest Fancreations</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Old God of MI6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">

        <li>
          Translation into Русский available: 
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173784">Старый бог МИ-6</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaellig/pseuds/Kaellig">Kaellig</a>
        </li>


    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the 2018 anonymous prompt: Traditionally, 00s who reach 45 get sacrificed to an Old God. Bond's rather looking forward to it.</p>
<p>Also for Headcanon Week and the mystery of Q’s name square of the Trope Prompt Table.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a god at MI6.</p>
<p>Not that anyone acknowledged it, of course. But anyone who stepped on those old stones could recognize something there, living within the very stones that HQ had been built on.</p>
<p>It wasn’t particularly malevolent. It wasn’t necessarily benevolent. But it was undeniably there.</p>
<p>When M gave Bond the option of becoming 007, she said bluntly, “The few Double-Ohs who reach the age of 45 are given to Q as an offering. Are you prepared for that?”</p>
<p>“Q?”</p>
<p>M gave him an impatient look. “The Old God of MI6. Its designation is Q.”</p>
<p>It...had a designation? There were actual protocols for this entity? It was a <em>god</em>?</p>
<p>“Ma’am,” Bond responded, “I highly doubt I’ll reach 45 so I doubt we'll need to worry about that.”</p><hr/>
<p>No one knew who this god was. Q had been here long before they arrived and would be here long after they left. But some of the older employees whispered to their younger coworkers that there <em>were</em> ways to gain its favor.</p>
<p>1. Make nice with the cats.</p>
<p>There were dozens of cats that roamed the halls of MI6. The first thing that interviewers asked was whether the applicant was allergic to cats. Whatever health and safety regulations were being violated...</p>
<p>Well. MI6 was well-versed in turning a blind-eye. Q liked cats apparently.</p>
<p>So far as any of them could tell, no one fed the cats on a regular basis. None of the cats aged either. The newbies were trained with these cats; you typically stopped jolting out of your skin after the 16th cat ambush. You could run, but you couldn’t hide.</p>
<p>If you were patient and kind, if you had toys and treats, you could make friends with one of these cats. They weren’t afraid of humans, but they weren’t automatically friendly either.</p>
<p>Make friends, and you’ll find wads of cash at your desk and a shadowy companion. Trinkets and items you thought you had lost, along with a dead rat or two.</p>
<p>That was okay. MI6 employees learned their craft through exposure.</p>
<p>The popular rumor going around was that years ago, an accountant had made friends with one of these cats. During an ambush within HQ, that cat had blinded the assailant and saved the accountant’s life.</p>
<p>Bond didn’t know if any of that was true. The cats themselves were always well-groomed and fluffy whenever he saw them though. Most of the times, they stuck to the shadows.</p>
<p>Once, after a particularly stressful mission, he thought he saw one jumping through a wall.</p>
<p>2. Bring snacks and tea.</p>
<p>Give that no one even knew the god’s name, absolutely no one had any clue whether it ate and drank as they did. But the experienced employees sometimes left steaming cups of tea and sweets at their desks when they clocked out for the day.</p>
<p>They were always gone by morning. Sometimes, if you were lucky, something was left in exchange. A shining pen. A gleaming watch. A minor explosive.</p>
<p>There were cameras in every corner of MI6. Nothing was left unseen. Yet, for those curious, frustrated, <em>disbelieving</em> boffins who thought to find the prankster who had fooled all of their colleagues, they found nothing.</p>
<p>The tea and sweets were simply there one second and then gone the other.</p>
<p>The agents, of course, weren’t nearly at HQ long enough to diligently leave tea and snacks every night. But they had their own small tradition set up. After a mission, an agent was to leave a piece of their mission on the roof. It could be a spare bullet, a useless piece of a broken tracker, or even a bloody scrap of fabric.</p>
<p>Only then was the mission over. You would think this practice would create a junkyard on the roof, but nothing placed there lasted the night. Bond, out of morbid curiosity, once placed a broken Walther on the rooftop and sat vigil there the entire night.</p>
<p>When dawn broke, his Walther was still gone. In its place was a pen and a piece of paper.</p>
<p>
  <em>Be careful. It explodes.</em>
</p>
<p>Naturally, when he took the pen down to the boffins, none of them could figure out how it worked and none of them were willing to take it apart for closer inspection. Of all the MI6 departments, the boffins were the most fervent followers of Q.</p>
<p>Their entire department was named after it, after all. Even if their head constantly complained about his sacrificed equipment.</p>
<p>3. Talk to the walls.</p>
<p>Strange, wasn’t it? For a spy organization to encourage their people to talk to the walls with ears, the cameras with eyes. But the senior employees swore up and down that whatever you told the god in confidence would remain secret.</p>
<p>No microphones would hear it; no cameras would see it. But if you murmured your secrets into the fur of a cat, you might get a purr in return.</p>
<p>Some went around talking to themselves, to the walls, to Q, like an old friend. Talked about their day, the recent gossip, the divorce ripping their family apart. Q, if it was really, truly listening, must know the personal lives of dozens of employees.</p>
<p>Others only pressed their darkest thoughts into the cold walls, like a confession before a priest. Whispered that they had accidentally killed a child, that they hated their honeypot missions, that they couldn’t wash away the blood underneath their fingernails. Q, if it was really, truly listening, must know a thousand crimes.</p>
<p>Those who didn’t understand, didn’t try, didn’t want to think about the god dwelling in the building, asked why their colleagues did it. Didn’t it feel like yelling into the darkness? What use was a confession when there was no one there to absolve you?</p>
<p>But those who did, those who shared themselves willingly, always found a spot of sunshine in their day. Whether it was in a meal that stayed hot long past when it should have cooled off or a long-dead office plant turned green and vibrant, they knew they were heard.</p>
<p>A few months after he became 007, Bond returned to the halls of MI6. To the portraits who stared at him from their frames, he gave a soliloquy dedicated to Vesper. Silence was his response, but when he went home that night, he found a familiar Walther in his pocket.</p>
<p>It was as good as new and only seemed to respond to his hand.</p><hr/>
<p>When Mallory called him into his office after the whole SPECTRE disaster, Bond knew what was coming.</p>
<p>“Your birthday is in a week,” Mallory said, eyes troubled. “I’ve been told that it’s tradition for Double-Ohs to be sacrificed to this….Q when they turn 45.”</p>
<p>Mallory was new yet. Still settling into his role, not quite as attuned to MI6 as M had been by the end of her time. He couldn't feel the floor humming when he walked into his office, couldn't feel the walls breathing. He didn't understand. Not yet.</p>
<p>“I know,” Bond said.</p>
<p>Mallory frowned. “Bond - I know you don’t think much of me, but I’m not so cruel as to throw away your years of service for an archaic tradition - ”</p>
<p>“Don’t take this away from me.” Bond smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”</p>
<p>Mallory stared at him as if he were mad.</p>
<p>At his side, Moneypenny looked at him with knowing eyes. She understood. She knew what it was to hold the attention of a god. The day HQ had been bombed by Silva, she had been there. She had seen. According to eyewitnesses, the walls had shook and the floors had cracked, but MI6 hadn’t fallen.</p>
<p>MI6 hadn’t fallen even though by all rights, by the word of architects and scientists and boffins, <em>it should have. </em></p>
<p>Bond had already dedicated half of his lifetime to this life, this country. He figured he ought to give the rest of his life as well, just to be thorough about it.</p><hr/>
<p>When the time came, it was all remarkably simple. Mallory led him to the rooftop and said, “Are you sure, Bond?” Q had never given anyone back, and it wasn’t likely that Bond would be the exception, although he had been in so many other cases.</p>
<p>Bond settled down in a familiar spot. “Positive.”</p>
<p>Mallory sighed. “Then we thank you for your service. It was an honour knowing you, James Bond. I’ll be sure to use the obituary my predecessor wrote.”</p>
<p>Bond smirked. “Ta. Good night, M.”</p>
<p>“...good night.”</p>
<p>And then the door closed. Bond made himself comfortable and waited.</p>
<p>The sun set. The moon rose. The watch on his wrist ticked past midnight.</p>
<p>Ironically, it was a watch that Q had given him two years ago.</p>
<p>“There you are,” came a soft, exquisitely British voice.</p>
<p>Bond looked up. A man stood a few metres away from him where before there had only been air. In the moonlight, he was the most beautiful thing Bond had ever seen. For all that he was at least a few centuries old, Q looked awfully young.</p>
<p>“There you are,” Bond parroted. “Is your name really Q?”</p>
<p>“Do names matter?”</p>
<p>To an agent who had had numberless aliases? “No, I suppose not. What do you do with old, worn-out agents, Q?”</p>
<p>Q smiled. At his feet, a cat - Marigold, one of the secretaries had named her - twined herself around his ankles. “I bring them home to rest, of course. Then, they can choose what they’d like to do next.”</p>
<p>“I would love to go home with you, Q,” Bond said with a slow smile. “I’ve always been your favourite, haven’t I?” Because no other agent had gotten an Aston Martin for his birthday; no other agent was given a gift in exchange for an offering each and every time.</p>
<p>To Bond’s delight, a delicate flush spread across Q’s cheeks. “Not like that, you prat,” he huffed. “You’d think two decades of this work would mellow out even the worst tomcat, but you’re still as incorrigible as when you first stepped into my building.”</p>
<p>Notably, he didn’t attempt to deny the ‘favorite’ remark.</p>
<p>Bond chuckled and got to his feet, making a face when his knees protested after the long period of inactivity. Damn, he really was an old man now. “You needn’t worry about any tomcat behavior,” he promised, taking a step forward. “I hear that I’m yours to do with as you wish now.”</p>
<p>Q gave him a quelling look like Bond couldn’t see the deepening blush, the quirk of his lips. “Well, come on then,” he said, holding out a hand.</p>
<p>Bond took it.</p><hr/>
<p>When Eve Moneypenny took the seat of M, there were already whispers of <em>two </em>gods that lived in MI6. One liked tea and snacks; the other liked martinis and breadsticks.</p>
<p>Rumour had it amongst the trainees that if you placed a bottle of scotch on your desk and went to run on the treadmill for an hour, you’d come back to a note on why your marksmanship was terrible and no scotch.</p>
<p>Once, a new agent found a mysterious bullet hole through their new suit and a scathing comment about proper tailoring. A month later, Moneypenny herself found a vandalized report sitting innocently on her desk.</p>
<p>The words ‘the agent alerted the suspect to his presence by making contact with his earpiece’ had been highlighted three times. In red ink.</p>
<p>Moneypenny suspected she’d need to hire more psych faculty if this kept up. But for now, she leaned back in her chair and said fondly to her empty office, “James, only you could become a god without meaning to.”</p>
<p>Her bottom right drawer shook itself open to reveal a bottle of scotch.</p>
<p>Moneypenny laughed.</p>
<p>Arsehole.</p>
<p>At least he still had good taste in alcohol.</p>
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